Jayna Mikolaitis
Short Bio
Jayna Mikolaitis (b. 2000 in Hartford, Connecticut) received her BFA in Painting and Graphic Design from Boston University. She is currently the Interim Programming and Media Manager at Boston University's School of Visual Arts and a freelance marketing and studio assistant for creative professionals, shaped by her previous role as Senior Manager of Praise Shadows Art Gallery. She was awarded BU's Arts Initiative Summer Research Award for her work on weaving and textile production, nominated for the Yale Norfolk School of Art Summer Residency, and has recently exhibited at Project Hustle Boston, Gallery 263, Boston City Hall, and NO CALL, NO SHOW.
Artist Statement
I am a painter, fiber artist, and designer based in Boston, MA. My work examines the simultaneous tension and symbiosis between humans and nature. I'm specifically interested in the lesbian community's connection to gardens and kitchens and how these spaces—where human intervention and nature collide—have historically functioned as spaces of refuge, connection, and community. My image-based work is often figurative, depicting loopy, elongated figures set in hybrid habitats of domestic interiors and plant life. Inspired by Robin Wall Kimmerer's notion of "species loneliness," I think about the covert ways we try to grow closer to nature through control, mirroring, or mimicking. Ecology, mythology, food policy, and cookbooks are my frequent areas of research. My work, at its core, is about the role of caregivers and how we, as humans, take care of other people and the living things around us.